


Anxiety

by Caedmon



Category: The West Wing
Genre: Angst, Based on a Tumblr Post, F/M, Fluff, My First Work in This Fandom, angst and then fluff, poor Josh is an anxious soul
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-09-16
Updated: 2015-09-16
Packaged: 2018-04-21 02:46:57
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,448
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4812032
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Caedmon/pseuds/Caedmon
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>When Josh is anxious, Donna is the one to make everything okay.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Anxiety

**Author's Note:**

> Couple of quick notes:  
> ~I've shipped Josh x Donna since the night the pilot aired, but this is actually my very first fic for them (although I've promised another for a challenge by the end of the year). I guess my only defense is that I only started writing fics last year.   
> ~This is from a tumblr prompt from missmudpie: "Josh and Donna, the first White House Dinner of the Santos Administration." I'm not 100% sure what she had in mind, but I hope this is okay! It turned out way longer than I expected, for sure...  
> ~I own absolutely nothing but the mistakes. No beta, just me.   
> ~The muse is a dancing monkey, and kudos and comments are the coins in the tin cup.  
> ~Send me prompts! caedmonfaith.tumblr.com

Josh Lyman was an anxious man. 

This was nothing new, of course. For the better part of the last decade, he’d vented his anxiety on the woman on the other side of the wood paneled door, adjusting God-knows-what in the bathroom while he paced helplessly in her living room. For the last nine years, whenever anything had made him worried or afraid, he’d bellowed her name and she’d come running. She’d swoop in, assessing the situation, then set about making everything okay. She’d sass him, he’d deadpan back to her, and their banter would soothe him like nothing else ever could. But, ultimately, one way or another, she’d make everything okay for him. 

Josh had known for years that he couldn’t live without her.

But she was his girlfriend now. The lines have been redrawn. She still makes everything okay; when his anxiety takes hold she’s always there, soothing and calming and working out the things that the tip of his mind just can’t catch, but it’s all different now, somehow. Josh had thought that he’d miss having her just outside his door (and he does), but waking up next to her is better. He’d thought that she wouldn’t be available when he felt overwhelmed, but somehow she seems to know, she’s so tuned into his moods and needs after so many years that she always seems to know and makes herself available when it gets bad. Josh tells her what’s wrong, and she makes it right. Donna makes it okay.

Tonight, though...he can’t tell her about this. He’s afraid to tell her this fear. This dinner has him tied up in knots. 

To a less anxious man, the prospect of dinner with the President, First Lady and Queen of England would be nerve-wracking, but that wasn’t bothering Josh. Not too much. He’d met just about every foreign dignitary in the world, had dined with most, and heaven knows he’d spent enough time with the Santos’ to be completely comfortable with them. He had some mild concern about Donna dining with the Queen; she’d always been mostly in the background before, but that concern was minor. He had complete faith in her ability to smile demurely and distinguish a salad fork from a dinner fork. 

No, he was terrified of the press. 

Josh and Donna had only gone public with their relationship ten days prior, just after the inauguration, and it wasn’t willingly. The story had finally leaked after several weeks of relative peace but a couple weeks ahead of the time they’d intended to let the word out, and they’d confirmed it in a statement (which, even to Josh’s hyper-practical mind was the least romantic thing he could think of). The press had been much more excited about the two of them than either of them had anticipated, and they’d been the object of speculation and some paparazzi. Josh had snapped at a reporter after several days of being followed that he “wished that the press could back to what’s important, like President Santos’ energy plan, not who’s sleeping with who.”

This had landed him in a great deal of trouble, both at home and at work. Only the press was pleased about this quote. Donna and the administration were both embarrassed, and an extra day of the news cycle was sucked up by this idiotic outburst on his behalf, taking away from the energy plan - which was, of course, the opposite of his intent. 

That had been four days ago. Donna had forgiven him for humiliating her (as she always had) and the President had gotten over it fairly quickly, too, but the First Lady’s shoulder was still a bit chilly and his press secretary had made excuses instead of going to lunch with him yesterday. 

The twisting agony from that colossal misstep was still fresh, and he plopped onto Donna’s couch, rubbing his eyes with the heels of his hands hard until he saw stars, grimacing. What he wouldn’t give to yell through the door at Donna and have her come snark at him, making everything okay. But he couldn’t. He couldn’t yell at his girlfriend, couldn’t beckon her just to make him feel better about having screwed up days ago and get her to allay his fears about what lay ahead. 

The bathroom door opened and Donna came out on a cloud of pleasant scent, floral and fruit and Donna. She shut the light off, smiling at him, her hair up, her makeup perfect, her elegant, black beaded dress everything he’d always envisioned her wearing when he’d wished he were taking her to these gala events as his date instead of watching her dash around with a lanyard on as an aide. 

Donna beamed at him as she propped herself in the doorway seductively, perhaps about to ask him how she looked, but her smile faltered then slid from her lips completely when she saw him. Her eyes clouded, her brows knitted, and she dropped her arm from the door jamb and one hand from her hip where she’d been posing for him to perch beside Josh, her arm draped across his shoulders protectively so fast he hadn’t seen her do it, only felt her. 

“Josh? What’s wrong?” He shook his head and looked away from her. She didn’t buy it and told him so. He rubbed his forehead with the tips of his fingers when he started to speak, taking comfort in the broad sweeps of Donna’s hand over his tuxedoed back. 

“I just…” he pinched the bridge of his nose. “I screwed up _so badly_ with the gaggle Monday, and now we’re going out in front of the press together…”

Donna pursed her lips and nodded slowly, one inclination and drop of her head, understanding more than he wanted her to. “Who are you most worried about, Josh? The press, you or me?”

“All of the above,” he said, and looked at her frankly. “I’m afraid that the press is going to ruin this night for the President and embarrass the administration, but,” he shook his head and rocked it back, looking at her ceiling, “I’m really worried that the press corps going to smell blood in the water and come after us. You and I. That we are going to be one of those couples that the press harangues and nitpicks until we fall apart.”

Donna stilled her hand on him and sat back, dropping her chin and giving him an incredulous little smile. “Josh. Are you serious right now?”

He looked at her quizzically. “Why would you think I’m not?”

She rolled her eyes and shook her head slightly, still grinning as if she couldn’t believe his foolishness. “Joshua Lyman, you are insane. We have been through three elections, dealt with each others crappy moods, dealt with each others crappy boyfriends and girlfriends, we’ve _set each other up_ with crappy boyfriends and girlfriends...we’ve dealt with scandals and sickness… You were shot, Josh. I nearly lost you. Then I was in Gaza and you nearly lost me.”

Josh looked away from her, shuddering at the memory of Donna lying in that hospital bed in Germany. He didn’t like to think about it if he could help it. He had never felt more broken or helpless in his life.

Donna reached down and took his chin between her thumb and forefinger, tilting his face up towards her and smiling softly into his eyes. “Joshua Lyman, I love you, and it took eight years to finally make you mine.” She grinned at him, and he smiled a small smile back, looking down, but she wasn’t done with him. He wasn’t getting away from her that easily. 

She put her hand on his cheek and brought his eyes back to hers again. “Listen to me, Josh. If snipers and bombers can’t tear us apart, then the press corps hasn’t got a chance in hell.”

He cupped her face abruptly, capturing her lips with his and claiming them, claiming _her_. His kiss was forceful at first, his lips nipping and moving quickly in their conquest as if he were afraid he were going to lose her if he didn’t kiss her _right that minute_ , then gentling himself when he seemed to realize that she wasn’t going to float away, his mouth releasing hers slowly, reluctantly, dropping soft, chaste kisses but not releasing his gentle hold on her. Donna bit her now kiss-swollen lip when he pulled away and laid his forehead against hers, her head still between his hands but Josh didn’t see it: he had his eyes closed. 

“Thank you,” he whispered.

“For what?” she asked softly.

“For making it all okay.”


End file.
